The Wind in the Grass

Earlier this week, on an unusually mild January day, I took a walk in the prairie.  When I walk alone, I often listen to music.  The rhythm encourages me to walk faster, and I enjoy the lyrics--though sometimes I become lost in my own thoughts, the music reduced to a beat in the background which my feet follow but my head ignores.  On that sunny day, I was partway through my walk when I realized that my smart phone, on which I listen to music, was still in my pocket.  I noticed my pace was slower than usual, but I decided I didn’t mind.  I wasn’t in any particular hurry (some of my favorite words in the English language) and was planning to go off the paved path and into the grass.  So I left the music off.  As I walked, I heard the rustle of the dry grass as it swished in the wind.  At one point, I stopped to listen more carefully. That was when I took the phone out of my pocket: to make a short video.  In the recording, the sound of the wind sometimes drowns out the rustling of the grass, but I am posting it anyway as a memory of that lovely walk when I listened to the music of the prairie grass.